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cover-Touhou: New World - Gensokyo Dreaming

Wednesday, January 8, 2025 10:36:17 PM

Touhou: New World - Gensokyo Dreaming Review (Mofuji)

Hey, you like the mobile game Touhou: LostWord? Yes? Then good news, you'll be at home with this DLC near the end with a plot twist. No? Then, um... good luck, I guess?
Mima has returned. Yes, that's right, Mima is back. But nobody remembers her. Now why is that? Well, play to find out. And if that's not enough to entice you, there's nearly a dozen playable characters for you to play as, if you can find and unlock them.
Returning characters Sakuya, Remilia and Flandre from Scarlet Curiosity play sort of the same, but have new tricks and skills up their frills. Reimu and Marisa play just the same as they did in the base game, so if you want to return to something familiar, there you go. Sumireko finally makes her debut here, and while she's not the most powerful, she's just as good as the main two. You like Youmu or Reisen? Well, you can play as them. Koishi fan? Good news!
... Also there's a yukkuri Reimu for some reason...
Sadly, there's no 2p miko here; Sanae gets screwed again. The same with Yuyuko, Yukari, Wriggle, Patchu, Utsuho, Satori, Suika and of course Alice. I can only hope for another DLC to give us access to these characters. Maybe with mama Shinki as the boss?
Each character has her own set of skills and spell cards, though they have a much smaller selection than the main three. Spell card levels transfer between characters, as does your character level and equipment, but skill levels do not. So, if you want 10s in everything... well, lots of grinding.
Each of the new characters (so no Reimu and Marisa quest, and also no yukkuri Reimu quest for some reason) also has her character specific quest. Sometimes they're there to unlock another character, sometimes they're used to upgrade spell card level, sometimes they're just there to be cute and give the character a bit of time to shine. Even outside of these, you can play as any unlocked character at will, though they will not have their own special dialogue, the game just assumes you're playing as Sumireko.
Or Reimu or Marisa, because after you beat the game once, be it the DLC or the base, you have access to the character swap in any mode once you reach the map. So you can, indeed, start up a new game as Reimu, get to the map, swap to Flan and play the whole game through as her. However, it seems that in Reimu and Marisa mode, skills do not level.
Several characters seem to have their own special strengths or abilities, beyond what Reimu, Marisa and Sumireko have. Example being Flandre, who is capable of slowing her descent after a jump, granting her long jumps, and she also seems to jump higher, being able to get to spots easier... or just negate some mazes. Another example would be Youmu, who has a much higher base movement speed.
There's also two new things to do in this DLC... and they frankly suck. The first is playing catch the character, who runs away in a specific pattern and you have to be in contact with them long enough for a meter to fill to be considered caught. This is terrible in turbo mode, and not a whole lot better if you turn that off. Thankfully there's nothing actually forcing you to do this, so you can skip it. The second is time trials, where you run and jump along a course, trying to beat a specific time. It's not nearly as bad as catch and turbo mode doesn't make it terrible, but it's still not very fun. But it's also optional.
Well, unless you want to be able to max out your stats, because they give strengthening stones. So uh... yeah.
There are several new stages, or at least layouts, and you don't return to a large number of older stages/layouts from the base game. There are also now items in the stages to collect in the form of coins and floating boxes. The coins give you currency, while the boxes give you XP. While they're not in very large amounts, they do add up over time. It also seems that they're used in many cases to help direct you to "the right path" as it were, though of course optional paths and little corners can still reward you with some.
Enemy variety is still the same, and outside of Mima, there aren't any new bosses.
There's no reason to cover the basics outside of the new content, it's all the same. Use stones from quests to power up, Sumireko shares most of her armor and accessories with Reimu and Marisa, Kogasa blacksmithing, etc.
So yeah, if you want more of this game, get the DLC. It adds a lot of new content and character stuff, plus it has Mima. Mima makes everything better.